Critical Realism and Research Methodology

Ethnomedicine and dominant medicine in multicultural Australia: a critical realist reflection on the case of Korean-Australian immigrants in Sydney

“…This will result in a fruitful outcome of academic research in the disciplines of medical anthropology and sociology as is evident in the past research e.g., [9,20,81-84]. How critical realism will equip itself with appropriate research methods and how it will translate into emancipatory and transformative practices will be revealed in time [85]. …”

Improving Kenyan Secondary School students’ relationship with mathematics through self-regulated learning

“…This analysis is anchored on an ontology which presupposes reality that is stratified into three levels (Fletcher 2016;Archer et al 1999). First is the empirical level, which is taken to be made up of empirically measurable/observable actions, meanings and ideas as experienced and interpreted by humans.…”

“…reality. As such, critical realists (Archer et al 1999;Parr 2015) espouse the fact that the generative mechanisms which are generally taken to be structural and agentic in nature are inextricably linked to the activities they govern. Similarly, they argue that the generative mechanisms are also social products that can be ultimately understood through investigation of phenomenon at empirical level.…”

Teacher data agency and the mediation of new ways of knowing in schools: A socio-cultural perspective of professional learning, relationships and educational change

“…This is made possible by considering the "ties that bind ontology and methodology together" making explicit the role of ontology in this practical social theorising (Archer, 1995, p. 29). In this respect, underlabouring as a form of ontological reflection acts a regulator outlining, even excluding some of the research possibilities (Archer et al, 1999) while the process of retroduction serves as the means to isolate and describe conditions (mechanisms) for the events and phenomena being studied. The process of retroduction is seen as a movement "from one thing (empirical observation of events) …to something different (a conceptualisation of transfactual conditions)" (Danermark et al, 2002, p. 96).…”

“…Engaging in research is inherently a social process and the novice researcher is particularly at risk here where there is always potential to overreach one's empirical claims and judgements within the underlabouring process in framing the research study. Archer et al (1999) make the comment that "For realist philosophy to really have methodological consequences, the link between the posited abstract ontology and the shape and texture of the research findings must be systematic and explicit" (p. 15). To counter any concerns, a six-stage process of explanatory theory building makes the underlabouring process a transparent exercise, tracing development of the research project from conceptual framing through to data collection and analysis (Danermark et al, 2002).…”